Out of Jail Free
by Verbal Kint10
Summary: They've been living with this absentee landlord far too long. House/Wilson FS, Wilson/Amber


**Out of Jail Free**

House moved in the morning after her birthday. He drank coffee from her mug and jotted a grocery list with her pen. Wilson didn't mention it.

Clearing out the big stuff had been easy. He put her clothes in big black trash bags and dropped them off at the Goodwill dumpster behind Costco and Baskin-Robbins. Then he drove away, all while in a sort of trance, like he could blame it all on sleepwalking and buy the clothes back someday for a real bargain. He threw away his old McGill sweatshirt because it was torn in four places and he needed real pajamas.

The cleaning lady had long since tossed her makeup and her shampoo, along with the treasure trove of pore-minimizing scrub, tampons, and headbands that once cluttered her side of the sink. Wilson left the maid a check on the kitchen counter as usual

He kept her hairbrush on a shelf in the hall closet, on top of an unfinished puzzle and a still-wrapped Monopoly box. The bits of leftover blonde hair entangled in the bristles were as dead as she was, but sometimes they were only things that felt alive in this place.

Except for House.

It used to be that she was everything he loved about House. Now, he saw her where he shouldn't have. Now, whenever he looked at House and saw his vibrancy, his drive, his brilliance, it didn't feel like his anymore. Now, the traits felt borrowed from somewhere else, like excerpts from books, incomplete without the source material Wilson so desperately wanted.

He could tell House felt it too. He could hear the thumps of House's cane late at night, and when he couldn't, he could hear House's mumbled yells from the living room during the nightmares he claimed not to have.

And sometimes Wilson wondered which was worse for House, living with her or living with the things she came to define. Wilson wondered if House could still smell her perfume in the lazy chair, if he could taste her lips on the wine glasses, if he could feel her warmth against his back while he slept. Wilson could.

He wondered if House ever thought he was going crazy again. He wondered if House ever thought it was all too much to handle. Wilson did.

It was this place. It was more of an asylum than Mayfield could ever be, for both of them. Everything he loved about her became everything he hated about her, because it was all still here. Every refrigerator note, every pre-work kitchen kiss, every wrinkle in their playing cards and in their sheets was evidence of some beautiful, unique species that went extinct a long time ago.

It was this place. It had been hers, theirs, his, and theirs, but Amber would always own it and Wilson was tired of renting.

*****

On their last night there, Wilson packed the remaining contents of the hall closet into a box labeled _misc._ House unwrapped Monopoly and they played on the floor of the bare bedroom until House called it a win and Wilson called it a draw.

He left her hairbrush on the shelf.

The rest of her sat in three small boxes on the floor. The answering machine, a rusting Lysol can, custom stationery, and a coffee maker that was still warm crinkled the notes and address books at the bottom of the kitchen box. The other two boxes, bulging with sheets and organic candles, rested beneath an open Monopoly box. Next to it all was a picture of her. She looked beautiful, like he'd bought the frame and she was just the model who happened to fill it.

House plugged in her answering machine after dinner (instant noodles, consumed with plastic forks and Tupperware). Wilson hit the record button without listening to her greeting.

_'You've reached Dr. James Wilson'  
'And me.'  
'Please leave a message after the beep.'  
'Or don't.'_

They slurped cold beers over pondering silences that were itchy like healing cuts, and they laughed about nothing. He stayed awake for as long as he could, and House did too. Stretched out on old pillows with five or more dying flashlights, they were like two little boys both afraid of the same ghost.


End file.
